Some Great Thing
by kallysti
Summary: First novel in a series covering events before, during, and after the Mass Effect Trilogy. I began writing this in 2014, while I was waiting for surgery. So any Andromeda references are a happy coincidence. This novel covers events before and during ME1, with a little detour in the beginning to the far future. This is my first fanfic novel. I hope you enjoy it.
1. Once Upon a Time

Jared Massani leans against the ground car door, rests the sole of one of his boots up against it, and watches as the aging krogan professor and the little krogan girl walk hand-in-hand up to an ancient farm house. The little girl looks tiny next to the large krogan man, but she is taking the lead, practically dragging her grandfather up the path, skipping to stay ahead of him. They make a comical pair, and Massani has to smile.

This is Jared's first trip off his home planet, Kiara. He was both honored and surprised when his doctoral advisor, Urdnot Zarvak Massarian, asked him if he'd like to see Tuchanka. The krogan home world was famous throughout the galaxy for the almost miraculous ecological reclamation and rejuvenation it underwent in the first few hundred years after the Reaper Wars. Most of that was due to the efforts of Urdnot Grunt, Zarvak's great grandfather.

Jared had jumped at the chance to see the planet with his own eyes. And to meet Urdnot Grunt, an almost legendary character in the field of post-nuclear ecological reclamation.

So here Jared is on Tuchanka, acting as a driver for his prof, seeing the sights, admiring the huge forests and great plains that cover the planet. Musing about how nature can heal anything, even a planet as broken as the krogan home world used to be. Jared is scheduled to meet Urdnot Grunt later, but Zarvak asked him to stay with the car at the moment, so Zarvak, Shakara, and Grunt can have a few moments of family time together. Jared was happy to oblige.

-:-

"Who is he, Granda?" the little krogan girl says with the casual impoliteness of the very young, as she points to an elderly krogan in a massive chair.

"This is your Greapa Grunt, honey. Say hello, Shakara."

Shakara looks up into the craggy face of the incredibly huge and incredibly old krogan man sitting in front of her and shyly bows her head a little. "Hello, Greapa."

"Hello, Shakara." The old man's voice is gravelly and low. Involuntarily, she moves closer so she can hear him better. When she sees his smile, she has to smile back.

He nods and says, "Heh, heh. I'm not so scary after all."

A little confused, she shakes her head no, and then, to prove she isn't afraid, she scrambles up on his lap.

Her grandfather steps forward as the old krogan winces, but stops when his great grandfather shoots him a warning glance.

"I hear you are going far away, Shakara," the old man says.

"Yes," she says excitedly. "We are going far away. To a new galaxy. Mother told me that is a very big group of stars."

"That's what it is. What will you do there?"

"We are going with our friends. Kaila Shepard is coming with us, and her family, and Veria Vakarian, and some of the other Urdnots and, oh, lots of other people. We are all going to a new home together."

"Greapa?" asks Zarvak.

"Yes, son?"

"Do you think Shakara could stay here with you for a little while? An hour or so? There are a few last minute things I need to attend to here on Tuchanka. Her mother could come by to pick her up. It would give you all a chance to say goodbye."

"Sure." Grunt looks down at his little great great granddaughter. "Would you like to stay so I can tell you a story, Shakara?"

"Yes, Greapa. I would like to stay and hear a story."

"How about one about my mother, Jane Shepard? People call her 'The Shepard' now."

"The Shepard?" Shakara is confused again. "But she was human, Greapa. How could she be your mother?"

"Heh. Smart girl. She adopted me, because I had no mother."

"She must have been nice." The girl stops and thinks a moment. "That was a very long time ago."

"It was a long time ago. She was nice."

Grunt struggles to move his partially paralyzed body into a more comfortable position for himself and the little girl. When they are both settled in, Shakara leans against Grunt and listens as he says, "She was born on a pioneer planet, like the one you are going to..."

Zarvak watches them a few moments longer, then turns and leaves, a soft look on his scarred face.

-:-

Jared stands back as Zarvak says his goodbyes to his great grandfather.

"Shakara was a pleasure to spend time with, Zarvak. Thank you for leaving her."

Zarvak smiles. "Is there anything else you need before I go?"

"No, no." Grunt gazes up with tired, peaceful eyes. "I think this is the last time we'll meet, grandson of my son. I'm very glad we got to see each other again."

"Don't say that, Greapa. I'll be back in a year or two."

"I can feel the cold wind, son. Soon I'll follow the rest." Grunt's eyes look distant a moment, then they warm up and shine as he looks up at the krogan before him. "I love you, Zarvak. May you live a long and happy life."

Jared is astonished to see Zarvak's hand tremble as he lays it on the ancient krogan's arm.

"I love you, Greapa. I will never forget you. Shakara will never forget you."

Grunt pats his great grandson's hand, and looks over at Jared. "I knew Zaeed Massani well. A deadly man. Funny, kind, thoughtful, and as foul-mouthed as they come. A very great man. I enjoyed meeting you, Jared. If I am still alive, I'd like to read your dissertation when it's complete. In any case, I hope your life is full of joy and success."

Jared stands erect and goes over to the old krogan. They shake hands, and Jared says, "Thank you, Urdnot Grunt. Having you review my dissertation would be one of the great honors of my life."

Grunt nods, then sighs, saying, "You'll be late, if you don't leave now."

As the other two watch, the old krogan suddenly seems to collapse into himself, finally succumbing to pain and fatigue. His voice is a little curt as he adds, "Have a good trip."

So the visitors take what he says as a dismissal, gather their things, and walk to the door.

His hand on the door handle, Zarvak turns his head to look at his great grandfather one last time. Seeing the old krogan's eyes closed, he hesitates, but then speaks as if he is compelled to, his throat tight as he says, "Goodbye, Greapa. I'll miss you."

Those words rouse Grunt from his half-slumber. He raises his head, his eyes kindle, and for a moment Jared can perceive the great heart that made the old krogan a hero almost two millenia ago.

"Goodbye, Zarvak. Be at peace. Love is stronger than death."

With that, Zarvak opens the door and Jared follows him outside. When they get to the car, Zarvak's hands are shaking so hard he can't open his door, so Jared opens it for him. Zarvak stares out the window all the way to the spaceport. He says little during the boarding process, and sits down in his seat with a sigh.

-:-

Finally, after the shuttle is in space, Jared says, "Urdnot Grunt is a great and good man, Professor. And so very old. How old is he, exactly?"

"If he lives to his next birthday, he'll be 1841 Kiaran years old."

"I wish now I had asked about Zaeed Massani. But I just didn't think of it. That all is ancient history to me, you know?"

The attendant comes around with drinks and snacks, interrupting their conversation. There is a flurry of activity all around them, then the cabin lights dim a little and things settle down.

Jared leans back, sips on his coffee, and continues, "I mean, no one forgets the Shepard. Even now, every school child on Kiara is taught about her and the Reaper Wars. And all us Massanis know we are descended from Zaeed Massani. But there's maybe 60 generations between me and him. I never think about the connection at all. Have never thought about it until now. The only connection I really have to him is my last name, which is a very common surname on Kiara. But when your grandfather mentioned him, well, somehow he came alive to me. I wish I had asked Urdnot Grunt to tell me something about him."

Zarvak smiles. "I'll take you with me next time I visit my grandfather, Garvak. He's only a little younger than his father. He knew Massani, too. Granda'll be happy to tell you stories about him."

Jared smiles back. "I'd like that. Nothing better than a good story."

-:-

"Granda, will I ever see you again?" Shakara already knows the answer, so she clings to her mother's father's legs, and looks up at him with sad, sad eyes.

"No, honey, you never will." Zarvak lifts her up and holds her close. "You will never return to Kiara. It isn't possible. But you will always be in my heart, and I will always be in yours. Love is stronger than death, Shakara. It outlives time. My love will be with you all your life. No matter how far away you are." He squeezes her tight, and then sets her down.

Her mother comes up and takes her hand. Shakara stands with her head down, grinding the toe of her left shoe against the shiny floor.

"I love you, Dad." The woman reaches out with her free arm and wraps it around her father's neck. She gives him a quick hug. As she releases him, she says, "Take good care of yourself, ok?"

"I will, I promise. I love you, daughter." He smiles at them both. "Live a long and happy life, both of you."

An indistinct voice says something over the public address system. Shakara pulls back against her mom's hand as her mother begins to leave. Shakara's mother picks her up, turns, and walks to the door that will take them to their new life. She doesn't look back.

But Shakara does. She looks back over her mother's shoulder, thick tears welling up in her eyes, as she waves goodbye to her granda. She keeps waving until the door shuts behind her, and he is gone.

-:-

An elderly krogan woman and her youngest clandaughter stand together on a frosty knoll, looking up at the brilliant night sky.

"Greama Shakara," the little human says. "Where did The Shepard live?"

"There, child," and the woman points up to a light in the sky. "There, in the Milky Way Galaxy."

"So far away," the girl sighs. "Was she really our kin?"

"She is your grandmother, more than a hundred generations ago." The krogan smiles down at her. "My grandfather's great grandfather was her adopted son. He told me about her when I was your age. He said she had beautiful green eyes, as you do."

"Did she live before forever? Momma told me you have been here since before forever."

Shakara laughs and laughs. Then she says, "Including the time I spent asleep coming to this planet, I am over sixteen hundred years old. That would seem like forever to a human. But it isn't more than a drop in the vast ocean of time, child. Not more than a drop. Yes, she was before my time. She lived about seventeen hundred years before I was born."

"Such a long, long time ago. More years than I can understand, really." The little girl shakes her head and looks up into the sky again. "As far away as the Milky Way. Will you tell me one more story about her? Please?"

It's the old woman's turn to sigh. It's cold, and her body aches with age, but she has a hard time telling this particular little one no.

"All right, but just one more."

"Thank you, Greama. Why don't you tell it to me while we walk home? I promise I'll go right to bed."

"I know you will. So. She was born on a pioneer planet, a planet like ours was when I first came here as a little girl, long ago..."


	2. What We Must Do

The little family stands in the growing dusk, looking down the road towards town. They can see flames shooting up into the sky, hear distant gunfire and explosions. As the three watch, a shuttle explodes in mid-air, bits of it burning as they fall to the ground.

Mark Shepard takes a deep breath. "The slavers will be here in minutes. If they come with varren, we can't outrun them. Better to stand and fight."

His wife nods beside him. "Anything is better than being a slave."

Mark turns to look at her and their teenage daughter. "Jane, take your pistol and get up high in this tree. Stay completely silent. Be ready to jump to the barn roof and make a run for it. If that happens, try to get to the creek. It might keep the varren from tracking you, especially if you head downstream. Your mom and I will use the house for cover." He tousles her hair. "I love you, daughter."

Jennifer Shepard pulls the girl close for a brief, fierce hug, then searches her daughter's face with blazing green eyes. "I love you, honey. You stay alive now, no matter what. Do you hear me?"

The girl nods and tries to smile at her parents through her fear and her tears. With a deep breath, she forces the fear down, and says, "I love you both, so much. I'll stay alive, no matter what. I promise." She turns, and her father boosts her up as high as he can. She scampers up the tree, into the thickest part of the branches.

The two adults run back home, where they turn on all the lights in an attempt to draw the slavers past the unlit barn. By the time the lights are on and the house is secured, they can see their ruse is working. The batarians ignore the barn and come straight to the house. Jane's parents see there are no varren, and sigh a deep sigh of relief. If Jane stays silent, she should be safe. The slavers try to break in, but the reinforced doors hold.

As night falls, the slavers build a bonfire outside and stand around it, some of them drinking and throwing their empty bottles into the fire. They yell obscenities and threats at the house. When the house lights suddenly go out, some of them shoot a few times at the windows, but stop when they realize they can't penetrate the bullet-proof glass.

-:-

"I love you, Jenny."

"I love you, Mark."

"There's maybe two dozen of them out there. I think we're going to die tonight, Egypt."

She looks up at him then with enormous affection. "Better than being slaves. It's been a great life, a wonderful life here with you and Jane. Coming to Mindoir with you was the best decision of my life. I have no regrets."

"It's been like living in Paradise," he agrees, nodding. "My only regret is that I can't spend another hundred years alive, loving you and her."

Jenny looks with fear towards the barn. "Do you really think she'll live through this?"

Mark looks towards the barn, too, and she hears him give a single harsh bark of laughter. "Her? With no varren, I'm sure of it. Positive. She'll live. We'll die, probably all of those assholes, too. But she'll live. She is who she is."

"We can't kill them all, Mark."

"No, we can't. But she can." His voice cracks a little as he adds, "The moment one of those bastards lays hands on you, she'll come into her own." Then Jenny sees the ghost of a smile flash across his face. "Besides, she has to live. You told her to."

His wife's shoulders square, and Mark can see her steady down as she turns away.

"You're right," she says as she lifts her rifle and moves to a front window, opening it wide enough to shoot through. "Well, then, let's take down as many of these assholes as we can. Improve her chances."

She looks around. "I think they'll try to burn us out. It's the only thing they can do. This was the best cover we could reach in time, and it drew them away from her. You were right, Mark. But we're going to be between a rock and a hard place."

Then she opens the window a little wider.

Mark looks around, too, and says, "So they drive us out of cover. We have to fight to the bitter end, Jenny, cover or not. Take as many of them as we can with us. No surrender. No matter what they do to us, we can't show any fear. We have to fight to our last breath. For her. She'll be watching. Our last lesson to her must be how to die well. It will all be for nothing if we don't show her how to die with a heroic heart."

"We'll die spitting in their eye."

Jenny wastes no more time. She takes a shot and the first batarian falls. The rest take cover and become silent. Stay silent. The seconds tick into minutes, and still the batarians make no noise at all. The silence is an old trick, originally a hunting trick, and, like any quarry, the humans can't help but get nervous as it goes on and on.

Eventually, Jenny grows tired of their game. So she begins filling that slaver silence with some sound of her own: a song of defiance first sung long, long ago. She sings out the window in a loud, clear voice, and, with relief, her husband joins her:

The minstrel girl to the war is gone,  
In the ranks of death ye may find her.  
Her mother's sword she hath girded on,  
With her wild harp slung round behind her.  
Land of Song, sings the warrior bard,  
Though all the world betrays thee,  
My harp belongs to the brave and free  
And shall never sound in slavery!

A faint hint of their song carries on the breeze through the night air all the way to their daughter, who is watching the batarians from the tree. While she listens, she sees the slavers become restless themselves, unnerved, perhaps, by their unconventional prey. A couple of minutes later, she sees the batarian leader motion to a couple of his men, who start creeping in a wide circle, moving out of view as they head around the other side of the house.

In the house, Jane's father catches a glimpse of their old rocking chair as he turns to take up his part in the fight, and he remembers Jenny sitting there, rocking little Jane in her arms, all those years ago.

-:-

"Are you comfortable, love?" Mark smiles at his wife as she nurses their infant daughter.

"Well," she smiles back, "as comfortable as I can expect to be." She looks down at the baby in her arms. "She's beautiful, Mark."

"Just like her mother. She has your green, green eyes, Egypt."

"She has your stubborn jaw."

"She's going to be a handful, I think."

They sit in silence together for five or ten minutes, the sleeping baby growing heavier and heavier in her mother's arms.

"Would you like me to put her to bed?" Mark asks.

"Yes, thanks. Who would ever believe something so little could get so heavy?"

When he gets back, his wife is looking out the window, far off into the grey rainy sky.

"What's bothering you?" he asks.

"I had that dream again during my nap." Jenny's eyes are intense when she looks at him. "I've had it so many times, Mark, since that shuttle crashed and exploded near town. I can't make sense of what I see, but it's bad. It makes me feel like something is coming, something terrible."

She looks off in the distance again, "I hear screams in it, but the voices aren't human. I don't know..."

"It's only a dream."

She shakes her head. "No, it isn't. It doesn't really feel like a dream. It feels more like, um, like I'm watching a vid." She looks over at their daughter's room. "That shuttle was full of eezo. I keep wondering if we should tell her doctor."

"There are rumors on the Net it might make her biotic. Like the asaris. If we tell Martin, he'll have to report it. I don't like that, Jenny. Why are they tracking children exposed to eezo in utero? They aren't saying why. They refuse to tell the public a thing about it. I don't like it. I'm worried they might try to take her from us."

"Over our dead bodies. You're right. She hasn't started glowing yet. No point in worrying about it. If she's biotic, we'll make sure she's taught how to control it. If there are no humans to teach her, we'll find an asari."

They are both silent a few minutes, then Mark can't help but say what is on his mind.

"Jenny, I don't know. I don't know about your dreams. I feel funny every time I think of them finding that old prothean site when they dug the shuttle up at the crash site. It was all hush hush, but I heard there was some kind of broken communication device in it. Some kind of shard, I heard one of the workers say."

He turns to her. "I'm going to look into it some more. What if the shuttle crashing and exploding activated that shard somehow? What if it communicated something to you, love? Some kind of warning, maybe?"

"And maybe we're crazy. Why me and not someone else? There were hundreds, thousands of people around. It's probably all a coincidence. Let's watch a vid and get our minds off of it." She smiles at him. "Your turn to pick."

"Want some popcorn?"

"Mmmmmmmm."

-:-

A tall, angular woman walks in through the Shepard's front door without knocking.

"I've brought you some dinner, Jen."

"Agnes Woodward, you spoil us." Jenny smiles at her friend.

"It's only a casserole and a salad. Nothing special."

Mark sniffs the air as he walks in from the kitchen. "Smells great."

Agnes nods to him and hands him the dishes, saying, "I have to go, but I'll stop by tomorrow and tidy up a bit and sit with you."

Agnes looks at the baby in her mother's arms, and smiles. "She's only two weeks old, and she is already trying to focus her eyes, hold up her head. She's going to be a handful."

"Takes after her dad there." Jenny grins. "I was an angel. I have it on the best authority."

Mark shakes his head as Agnes chuckles her way out the door.

-:-

Time goes by. One day, Jenny wraps Jane up, puts a pair of ear protectors on her, and carries her out to the barn, where Mark is getting ready to make a new horseshoe. Jenny loves to watch him at the forge. He looks so hot that she always wants to strip right there and then. Sometimes she does, too. They both think that's how Jane was conceived. Not right by the forge, but out near the stalls, in the hay.

Mark looks up and smiles, then goes back to his anvil.

Soon the sparks are flying. At first little Jane is startled every time the hammer hits the horseshoe, but she doesn't cry, because her ear protectors muffle the sound, and the whole process intrigues her. After a bit, she starts reaching both hands towards the glowing metal and the forge and the hammer.

Her father makes a game of it all, goofing around until his wife and daughter are both smiling. When things are cool enough to be safe, he lets the tiny girl try to hold the hammer. She can't, of course, but she tries hard. He holds her hand on the handle gently, and taps the curved metal. She laughs out loud, so he does it one more time.

Finally, Jenny remembers her excuse for coming out to watch him. "Lunch is ready, Mark."

-:-

"I'll be there as soon as I clean up."

"Oh, god," Jenny moans on her knees in front of the toilet. "Why can't she shut the fuck up and let me throw up in peace?"

Mark holds his wife's hair back as she leans over and loses what little remains of her dinner. Then he hands her a damp washcloth.

Jane has gone from fussing to screaming for her night-time feeding, but Jenny is in no condition to breast-feed tonight. Somehow, she's caught the flu going around and she is positively miserable.

"If you're gonna be all right, I'll deal with her," Mark says.

"Yes, yes. I'll be fine." Jenny says impatiently. She gets a strange look on her face. As she gets up from the floor, she says, "You'd better get out. This is gonna be worse." Then she sits down on the toilet.

Mark beats a hasty retreat. He goes and grabs Jane with one big hand, and takes her out to the kitchen. Retrieving some pre-pumped breast milk from the freezer, he warms it up and puts it in a bottle. Then he takes the milk and the still-screaming baby and goes and sits in the rocking chair.

Jane takes the bottle hesitantly. It's the first time she's ever had one. But hunger overcomes novelty, and soon she's belting it down, while her father sings some lullaby tune under his breath. Her dad sighs with relief as the baby's crying is replaced by sucking noises, and he listens to his wife retching in the bathroom with a worried look on his face. Finally, that dies down, too. He hears the bathroom faucet turn on and off, then Jenny opens the door and walks out, looking pretty pale.

She collapses on the couch, shivering, and wraps herself up in the blanket Mark had been dozing under peacefully, only half an hour ago. After a few minutes, she says, "You look so domestic. What's that you're singing to her?"

Mark grins and sings a little louder, "Fuck you little baby, shut your mouth, or I'll take you to the creek and send you south."

Jenny laughs and laughs. Then she jumps up and rushes back to the bathroom. For the third time.

-:-

It's been 4 months since Jane was born. Jenny decides she's gone long enough without some target practice. So she puts the baby in her stroller, slips the ear protectors on her, grabs a pistol and some ammo, and heads out back of the house to the gun range.

Mark is comfortable with a gun. When he goes hunting with his buddies, he usually get his share of game. But Jenny fell in love with firearms the first time she shot one, and has pursued them avidly every since. She is, by far, the best shot in the family, especially with a pistol.

The range needs a bit of a tidy up, so she spends a little time doing that, then she loads her pistol and begins to shoot. Slowly and carefully, she dials the sights and her aim in until she can put shot after shot through the center of the old painted target.

Jane spends the time looking around her, watching her mother, and playing with the toys hanging on her stroller. Eventually, she falls sound asleep in the warm sun and cool breeze, completely inured to the sound of her mother's pistol.

About 20 minutes after the first shot, Mark wanders up from the pasture and stands watching his wife hit the center, over and over again. When she's done, he whistles.

"Still got it, babe."

She colors up a little. "Yeah, well, you should have seen me when I started today. Look at the scatter. Pathetic."

He kisses her forehead. "I'm done for the day. How about I take this smelly girl, clean her up, and start some dinner? I've been missing her all afternoon."

"That'd be great. I'll spend a bit more time out here. It's nice, getting back to things."

-:-

"Jenny, Jenny, wake up. It's all right. It's all right." Mark gathers his wife in his arms and shakes her a bit.

She looks up at him with tears in her eyes. "So many people dying. A whole galaxy of people dying."

He tightens his arms around her as she shivers. Her pupils are wide and dark, but the green irises of her eyes seem iridescent in the moonlight.

Looking into her eyes is like looking into the heart of mystery, Mark thinks. Like looking into the heart of light. Since that first night she has been the heart of light to me.

Then he holds her even closer.

After her eyes are dry and she has stopped shivering, he says, "Jane's six months old, so it's been a year you've been having these dreams. They don't fade and I don't think we can keep ignoring them, love." He sighs. "I think there is some truth to them. Some kind of message we don't understand. The more I study it all, the more I think it's from the protheans."

"No one would believe that. No one. Mostly even I don't believe it."

"I don't completely believe it myself. But there's some young asari scientist who thinks there's some kind of cycle. Some regular rise and fall of galactic civilization. She's been getting shit about it on the Net, people saying she's crazy, or dismissing her ideas because she's still almost a child." Mark thinks about that a minute. "Just imagine, honey, being over 70 and having people still consider you a child."

Then he goes on, "But if she's right, maybe your dreams are a warning. Maybe our time is coming. Or maybe not. I don't know. But if there's a chance she's right and we do nothing and Jane dies a horrible death, it will be our fault."

Jenny's pupils narrow and her eyes seethe. "That is not going to happen. We will not let that happen. We risked our lives escaping Earth to make sure she had a good life. We worked and studied and waited for each other for years to make sure our children would have the good life we never had. Jane is not going to die some horrible death. We will not let that happen."

He has to smile a little as his finger traces the line of her jaw. "Are you sure she got that stubborn jaw from me?"

She smiles back. "Maybe me too. Just a little."

"So what do we do?"

She relaxes in the circle of his arms a long time, thinking. Finally she says, "What we must do."

"And what is that?"

"Prepare her. For anything. Give her every tool we can think of that might help her in some dangerous future."

"I can see that..." Mark starts to say, but he's interrupted by Jane's fussing. "Nothing wrong with our girl's appetite, that's for sure," he says, getting up out of bed. "Why don't you stay where you are? I'll check her diaper and bring her to you."

-:-

Jane's parents stand together, looking down at their sleeping daughter in the light of a full moon.

"She's special, Jenny. I don't mean like our daughter. I mean as herself. She's not loud and flashy about it, but every week she's doing something before she's supposed to be doing it."

He nods his head to himself as he speaks. "And the way she looks at the world, thoughtful-like. I've never seen another baby with a look like that."

"And how many babies have you seen, Mr. Baby Expert?"

He laughs. "Ok, not many. But she is different. Even Agnes thinks so, and she's seen tons of babies."

"Ok, you win, she has." Jenny smiles at him, and they are silent together for some time. Finally she sighs and speaks.

"Truth is, I think something bad is coming, I do. Who knows when? I'm sure something bad did happen, all those thousands of years ago. I can't make out a single clear image in my dreams. Pictures flash through my peripheral vision in a blur. None of them lasts long enough to identify. But the screams... the screams take a long time to fade away.

"I'd never admit I believe they are true dreams to anyone but you. But I don't want her to grow up afraid of the future. I might be wrong about it all. We can never tell her about these dreams, Mark."

"We won't."

"I hope I'm wrong," Jen adds, her voice fading.

After a bit, she goes on. "We have to be better than we are. We have to be more patient, calmer, more rational, fairer than we really are. We have to control ourselves, not be reactive. We'll be asking a lot from her. She has so much to learn."

Mark nods his head. "We'll teach her what we know. It's far from everything, but it's the best we can do. And we can learn more, anything we think she needs to know, we can learn. I'm glad we live a rural life; learning about tending the farm will make her strong. We'll teach her what it means to be a good person. About being honest and kind. She'll need the poetry, Jenny. Your mom was so right about that."

"And she'll need the music. You have been so right about that." Jenny shakes her head. "She needs to know how to survive. Be self-sufficient. How to shoot. How to hunt. How to handle tech. Even this young, it's clear that she's smart. I hope she likes learning."

They fall silent at that and go back to watching their baby sleeping. They're maybe a little overwhelmed by their discussion, so it's a while before one of them speaks again.

Then Jenny looks up at Mark and says, "This sounds crazy to me. It is a crazy plan. Just crazy. She's only a baby. We're two settlers trying to make a go of our farm, like all the rest. What are we talking about here? I think we need to go to sleep and forget about it." She shakes her head. "I'm serious, it sounds totally crazy to me when I say it out loud. I'm brooding on it too much. Maybe it's some kind of post-partum depression."

"I don't know, honey. You seem pretty happy, otherwise. Why don't you go see your doctor? She'll be able to help you sort it out, if it is depression. She told us there's a blood test for it. It's not right for you to have to brood and suffer. Not good for you. Not good for Jane."

"You're right. I'll make an appointment tomorrow. But, well, part of me doesn't think it's depression, you know? The part that hears the screams still echoing after I wake up definitely does not think it's depression. Grand plans sound crazy... but what if the dreams are true? What do we do, Mark?"

"Look at it this way, Jen. If we teach her everything we can teach her about living a good life... well, it's what we should do anyway. We're her parents. It's our responsibility to do the best by her we can."

He smiles. "She'll only do as we do, not as we say, so we'll have to live it all ourselves, and we'll be better people for it."

He's so earnest, Jenny thinks to herself as she carresses the old gang scar on his face. He's so young still, in some ways. I love him for it.

Mark gathers himself up a bit and says, "Everything I have, Jen, every single thing. Every drop of blood in my body, every ounce of strength in my arms, my life, everything belongs to her and you. There is nothing I wouldn't do for the two of you. I love you both with all my heart."

"But all this talk," he goes on, "has made my heart tired and a little sad. I thought we left the danger behind us on Earth. Now I see how childish I was to believe that. Wishful thinking is all it was. Look at the slaver attacks. There's danger everywhere. But there's beauty, so much beauty, too. What do you say we go out and look at the stars? I never get tired of that. I didn't see them much back on Earth. Couldn't really see them in the city."

"I say let's do that, love. Let's take your violin and make music and sing and maybe dance a gentle waltz together in the light of the moon."

So he goes and gets her robe and helps her in it. Then they go out to sing and dance together in the moonlight, as they have done hundreds of times before.

This is the first time, though, since Jane was born. For the past few months, all Jenny has had the energy for by nightfall is sleep. Jane's birth was a hard breech birth and her mother has taken time to recover from it.

When the front door closes, the baby wakes up. Through her screen window, Jane can hear her parents' voices in the distance. She plays with her hands and feet in the moonlight while she listens to their music. Engrossed with her toes, she gurgles and chuckles to herself a little, then slowly falls back asleep.


	3. The Good Daughter

An Alliance tech shivers in the cool, damp, pre-dawn air. There's a knife-edge of light on the horizon, but a deep gloom lingers around the recon patrol hunting the last of the slavers. Their commander had diverted their frigate in response to a distress call from the desperate colonists on Mindoir, and they arrived on planet to find the vast majority of the slavers had already taken their catch and headed back to batarian space.

The team has been on the ground since midnight, giving aid where they could, killing the last shuttle of batarians left in the area, seeing things that made their stomachs churn. The worst were the dead kids, failed implants half-sticking out of their skulls, faces frozen in pain and fear.

Right now, they are trying to track down a group of batarians that have seemingly disappeared. They followed the slavers' tracks down a road that led to the rural area outside of a little town. Now, as they move cautiously towards the front of the smouldering ruins of a farmhouse, the tech almost trips over a dead body. It's one of the slavers they're hunting. She kneels down and scans it with her omnitool.

"Commander, there's a body here. Batarian. The settlers put up a fight, sir. And someone was a hell of a shot. This piece of crap has a hole in his head where his top right eye should be."

"Farmers are tough people, Brady. I'm not surprised they fought back," he replies.

As the team watches, the top edge of the sun finally clears the horizon. Nearby, some small thing rustles through thick brush, hurrying to hide from the day. A lone cock crows. The sun continues rising, washing the deep sky with swathes of orange and purple. A dawn breeze sighs, and the leaves of the trees begin to tremble. Taking a breath, the soldiers can taste the scent of smoke and blood in the warming air rising around them.

Standing in the pale first light, Anderson and his team are caught by surprise by what they see, their expectations completely violated. This doesn't look like the other slaver assault sites they've seen. It looks more like a battlefield.

Two humans, a man and a woman, lie staring into the sky beside the dead fire. Two of his troopers rush to them. One kneels beside the woman's body. "She's dead, sir. Shot between the eyes." The trooper looks the body over and looks away a moment. "She's been raped. Looks like she fought back."

The other is down beside the man. "Got him in the kneecaps, the bastards. Then shot him between the eyes, too." The trooper looks around a second. "The batarians were drinking, Commander. There are burnt-out bottles in the ashes."

"The farmers probably took cover in the house and got burnt out. They never stood a chance. I wonder why they didn't run for it, instead?" Anderson says, looking at the woman with an indefinable expression in his eyes. After a second, he spits on the batarian corpse beside her and says, "Fucking slavers!" His team looks at him in surprise.

He leans down and gently closes the woman's eyes, then walks over and does the same thing for the man. After another second, he takes a deep breath and says, "All right. Brady and Liu, vids, samples, and an analysis of this immediate site, then get a shuttle to take these brave people to the morgue. When you are done with the batarians, pile them up. We'll burn them."

Anderson walks around and counts the batarian bodies scattered from the roadside ditch all the way to the farmhouse's front door. He looks at the rest of his team. "They killed 10 before they died. That leaves twelve more still unaccounted for. Break up into groups of two, fan out, and see what you can find."

Within minutes a voice cries out from behind the house, "Holy crap, sir, here's one with an arrow in his chest. Hole as big as my fist."

"An arrow? That's impossible."

"She's right, sir. It's an arrow."

Anderson goes to see for himself. The batarian is lying in a pool of blood, surrounded by dew-drenched lavender and tea tree. Drops of water shaken loose by the trooper lie scattered across her hair, sparkling in the sun. They are spattered over the batarian's face, too, but it lies in shadow and the drops are dull and dark. His eyes are open, in a look of perpetual surprise. The fletched end of an arrow sticks out of his chest.

"Take it out," Anderson orders. So the Marine who found the corpse grabs the arrow and tries to extract it. It won't budge. She throws the corpse over on its face, and the scent of crushed lavender fills the air. They can see where the arrowhead has pierced the batarian's body through and come out the other side.

Gravity pulls his body further down the fletch end of the shaft, making the arrowhead stick out a little more from the back. So it's easy for the marine to cut the arrow with her combat knife. Then she holds the business end up for her commander to see. The arrowhead is large and heavy, with multiple blades in a configuration engineered to inflict as much tissue damage and blood loss as possible. It looks expensive, and it's clearly meant for hunting big game.

Anderson gives out an involuntary whistle and says, "Jesus. Must have killed the bastard instantly."

Then another team, who's a bit further from the back of the house hollers, "Got another one over here, sir. Same thing."

Anderson doesn't bother to go look this time. All he says is, "Ok, get the coords, do a scan, and keep searching."

Five minutes later, someone on the team furthest out says, "Here's two together. Both of them shot. Probably a pistol. One in the back of the head, the other twice in the heart."

Anderson goes to take a look at those two, too. The headshot is clean and well-placed. The bullet entered the base of the back of the skull at an acute angle. The entry wound is bloodless, but when they turn the corpse over, the batarian's entire forehead is missing.

The marine kneeling by the other body shakes his head in admiration. "These two entry wounds overlap, Commander. The overlap is dead center on the heart. They didn't land there by mistake, I think. The wounds aren't very big. I'm guessing a small caliber civilian pistol. I can't imagine any settler knows batarian anatomy well enough to aim deliberately for the heart. Maybe the killer is an ex-military man."

Anderson nods. "Maybe so. All I know is I'm glad whoever it is is on our side. Let's keep going."

"I hope we don't find him dead, Commander," the marine says.

"Or her," Anderson says. "Me, too."

His team keeps finding bodies. Most of the batarians have died from gunshot wounds. But as they move to the far edge of the mown field, one of the searchers hollers again.

"Commander, come look at this!"

When Anderson gets there, his brow furrows a bit as he looks at the body lying in the uncut grass. This one is on his back, arrow sticking out of his throat. The head of the blade is embedded in the flesh, but almost all of the shaft is exposed.

"Not so much force here. I think, sir, that this must have been done by hand. Wouldn't take a whole lot of force, really. Those arrows are razor-sharp."

"I think you're right."

Another soldier says, "There's an empty pistol on the ground here, sir. Must have run out of ammo."

"That might explain the arrow. But what happened to the bow?"

-:-

The trail of bodies has led into the wild fields beyond the borders of the farm. Searching gets easier, because there's a clear trail of bent grass leading from the last body they found out towards a tall tree.

After following the trail a few minutes, they find another dead slaver, his right arm partially thrown across his face, an arrow shaft shoved in one of his left eyes.

This time, from the dried mess on the arrowhead, it looks like the attacker used the point, hit bone, and flipped the arrow around, shoving the feathered shaft through the eye socket, deep into the skull. Even Anderson winces a bit when the tech pulls it back out.

They keep walking in the same general direction after that, getting closer and closer to the tree. The sun is high enough to feel pleasantly warm. Insects and birds buzz and chirp all around them. They can hear some cattle lowing near the distant barn. As the soldiers walk on, one of them looks around and says, "This is a beautiful place. Look at that violet blue sky." His buddy shakes his head and says, "Man, this could have been such a beautiful day."

They get close enough to the stream to see it glint in the sunlight. A rope is tied to a thick branch that's hanging over the water. A couple of them see that and smile, remembering good times and better days.

-:-

They keep smiling as they walk around the huge tree trunk. When they come to the other side, the one on point almost stumbles over yet another batarian body, this time minus all four eyes and most of his left temple. His buddy looks down at the mutilated head and whistles tunelessly, his pleasant smile turning fierce and glad.

Then they notice the girl, and and their smiles disappear.

She's crouching between a couple of big roots. The dead batarian lies at her bare feet; his pistol dangles from her limp hand. Her clothes are half-torn from her body; her face and hands are evenly covered in a fine layer of dull brown dirt. She's staring straight ahead, humming some folk-sounding tune they can barely hear over the stream. She pays no attention to them at all.

"Christ," Anderson says. He runs to her, getting down on his knees beside her.

She stops humming and looks up at him with a flat, angry expression. He can see the exhaustion in her young face.

"Honey, we are here to help you," he says. When she doesn't reply, he asks, "Are you hurt?"

"They killed my mother."

"I'm so sorry about your parents. They were brave people." Anderson takes a breath. "But it looks like someone has already avenged them. Who killed all these slavers?"

Her green eyes flare at the question, but all she says is "Me."

He finds her answer almost impossible to believe. So does his team. They were expecting some grizzled hero, not a runt-sized teenage farm girl. But it's clear she's seen action. She's covered in dried blood and bits of flesh. Her hair is filthy with gore; the dirt on her hands and face is encrusted with it. Her neck has a series of small bruises down both sides, no doubt from the batarian's finger tips. When they look closer, they can see what has to be the dried remains of the batarian's eyes covering her short thumb nails.

Maybe, a lot of them think right there and then, looking at the expression on her face, maybe she could. They talk about it amongst themselves, later, and agree there is no doubt that she could. They relive the search, paying particular attention to the angle of entry of some of the bullets and the arrow in the throat; for most of them, their discussion about all that settles it.

So the first story in the legend begins to take form. It gains a more a permanent arc when the team repeats it to their shipmates. Later, the whole crew embellishes it a bit whenever they tell it in bars over a beer; or when they write home about it to their families. Little by little, it spreads across the Fleet, through the human colonies, and eventually as far as the Terminus systems.

In the end, many years after, all the telling has turned this particular story into something almost mythical, at least for most folks. For those of the original team left alive, the experience becomes a treasured memory to share with grandchildren, or a source of personal pride, a justification for feeling a certain sense of importance just from knowing her back at the beginning... from being there at the start.

-:-

Anderson tries another question or two and realizes she's not going to respond.

He decides to try a different tack. "Can you stand?" he asks.

She nods and gets to her feet. Anderson is at a loss to know what to do or say, but she ignores him completely. She steps over the batarian, and glances at his team. The semi-circle of soldiers opens silently to let her pass, then they fall into formation behind her. She starts walking directly towards the smoking house, wading through the sea of golden summer grass.

The girl finds her mom and dad, and gets down on her knees between them, kissing them both through the dried trickles of blood and tiny bits of flesh spattered on their foreheads, caressing their cheeks with her fingers, gripping their cold, stiff hands in her own. Everyone watching her aches at her wordless grief. One older civilian orderly, who lost his own mother in the raid, begins to cry. But the girl doesn't shed a tear.

Finally, she stands and looks down at her parents for a moment, her throat working. When she has control, she speaks as though they can still hear her: "Mom, Dad, I kept my promise and I will keep it. I'll be back. Some day, after I find a way to make sure this never, ever happens to anyone again, I'll be back. I love you. I will never forget you. I will make you proud."

She turns to the orderlies waiting with stretchers, and nods. They take her parents to a shuttle. She watches it leave, then walks into the ruin that only yesterday was her family home. After a few minutes she comes back out, smudged with soot, an old paper book in her hands.

Anderson points to his shuttle and asks her to board it. She looks toward the barn, instead.

"Are you worried about your animals?" Anderson asks.

She nods.

"I'll arrange for someone to take care of them. They'll be fed and watered."

She looks up at the sun and back at the barn. Anderson realizes she's looking specifically at a couple of black and white milk cows in a small paddock. He doesn't know squat about cows, but he's pretty sure milk cows suffer if they aren't milked regularly. That's probably what she's worried about.

"We'll get someone here today to milk them." Anderson softens his voice a bit. "The slavers didn't get everyone. We'll find someone to care for them for a while, until things shake out for you. I'm sorry, child, but we can't wait for you to do it, and we can't leave you here alone. We interrupted our mission to stop here and render assistance, but it's urgent, and we can't stay. You have to come with us, now."

The girl regards him a moment, then nods. She goes to the shuttle and waits patiently, reading in her book, while he gives his final orders to his troops. They'll stay behind to finish cataloging and incinerating the batarians before they return to their ship.

When he climbs aboard, his intention is to take her to the closest aid station. But as he looks at her, her head bowed over her book, some sort of poetry book, Anderson hesitates.

She's not a refugee, he thinks, and she won't appreciate being treated like one. No, uniform or not, she's seen action. She's suffering from combat trauma and she needs a soldier's care. Nobody better than Chakwas for that. So he decides to take the girl to the medbay on his frigate. He spends the trip up watching her read in silence, and regretting the fact the best he could do for her was much too little, much too late.

-:-

Once the frigate is underway, Anderson sits in his office, which is also his private room, reading through the preliminary reports about the slave raid on Mindoir. It's all exactly what he would expect, except for the part about the silent girl sleeping under sedation in medbay.

The situation at her farm was unique, and it had merited its own separate report. The summary is brief, but the details fill many dozens of pages. It's all there, the forensic information, the identities of the slavers, her school record, the farm deed, her birth certificate. The documentation goes on and on. But there is not a single document, not a single record from before her parents landed on Mindoir.

He finds out her name is Jane Shepard. She's 16, almost 17 years old. Her mom and dad were Jennifer and Mark Shepard. Her mom earned a business degree from Mindoir's biggest university. Her dad apprenticed himself to a farmer/farrier, who taugh him his trade.

Jane's thirteen confirmed kills include 3 headshots, one shot in the throat, one shot twice in the heart, one shot in the kneecaps and then in the crotch, two more shot once in the heart, two shot in the chest with arrows, one with an arrow shoved in an eye, and another with an arrow shoved through his throat. The last kill was the batarian they found at her feet, probably the leader, all four eyes gouged out, shot through the temple with his own gun.

When Anderson's done viewing the report, he sits back and thinks about what happened down there. Her kills. Her self-control. The promise she made her parents. Her sense of duty.

It has to be the military, he thinks. The best road to keeping her promise, for one thing. The only place where she has a hope of being accepted and understood. And she's a natural. More than a natural.

He shakes his head. An N7 would have had a fight down there. This girl, Jane, she didn't have any training. She didn't have any armor. Christ, she didn't even have any shoes. She killed 13 slavers with a bow, some arrows, and a civilian pistol. Ok, a few had been drinking. But 13 batarian slavers... Yeah, he nods to himself, it has to be the military.

So he calls Hackett. After reading the report and talking with Anderson for a few minutes, Hackett agrees, and orders Anderson to take her to one of the Alliance's preparatory boarding schools, once his mission is over.

After the call, Anderson decides to pay a visit to medbay.

-:-

"How is she, doctor?"

"Physically? She's fine. A few scratches, a few bruises. Some small cuts on her hands. Not a single real combat injury. The rape attempt didn't come close to succeeding, so no sexual assault injuries, either, apart from the bruises on her throat."

"And?"

"Mentally, she seems fine. Emotionally, she has completely shut down. She was cooperative the whole time. She was clearly glad to take a shower, and grateful for a clean set of clothes. But she never spoke a word, not even in response to a direct question. Her manner was polite enough, but she had nothing to say."

"I think you want to read this." Anderson hands Chakwas the datapad in his hand.

She reads the report in silence, then looks over at the girl.

"It hardly seems possible." She sighs. "No wonder she's not talking." Chakwas looks over at Anderson. "I wondered why you brought her on board. This makes it clear why."

"I talked to Hackett. He agrees. We'll be taking her to a prep school when our current mission is finished. I'm going to suggest my old school in Virginia to her. If she doesn't like that, we'll find some other place."

He looks at the girl a few minutes, then says, "She's special, Karen. She got up from the base of that tree and my men fell in behind her as though she was some kind of general. The orderlies who took her parents were the same way. Not a word from her, either. A glance, a nod, that's all it took."

"Some of that would have been from respect, I think. And from compassion. My god. I can't imagine what that night was like for her."

He nods. "That's true. But I think there was more to it. In any case, I feel responsible for her. I'm going to keep an eye on her, if she lets me."

"You found her, David. You didn't badger her. You treated her parents with respect. That will mean something to a person like her. She won't forget."

"I won't forget, either."

"She has beautiful eyes," Chakwas says suddenly.

"She does. Her mother's eyes, from what I could see." Anderson gets up. "Not much information on her parents. None before their life on Mindoir. But they must have been some kind of special, to raise a daughter like her."

"Any relatives?"

"None."

-:-

Anderson stands looking down at the girl sitting on his couch. She's still barefoot, dressed in some fatigues that are much too big for her.

"Jane, your parents have been buried where they wanted to be. On the little knoll across the road from your house. I made sure they had a proper funeral and the marker they specified in their will. Their attorney attended; I don't know who else did, if anyone. I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry this mission made it impossible for you to be there."

She nods. Her shoulders heave once, then she takes a deep breath and looks up at him.

"The Alliance has been in touch with the attorney. He was at the capitol the day of the attack, a bit of good luck for him. He was very happy to hear you survived. Your parents left you everything. He'll oversee your property until you decide what you want to do about it long-term. He donated the wheat and corn still in the field to the relief effort in you and your parents' names, and gave permission to set up some temporary housing near the barn. The refugees are caring for the animals, and using the milk and eggs.

"But your mom and dad didn't designate a guardian for you. Truth is, if they had, whoever it was would probably be dead or a slave. For better or worse, you are a ward of the Alliance until you turn 18."

She looks at him solemnly for a moment. Then she reaches out her hand to him. He takes it and sits down beside her. She points to him with her other hand.

"What are you trying to say? Is it about being a ward?"

She shakes her head.

"Is it about a guardian? Did they tell you who they wanted to be your guardian?"

She shakes her head, then points at him again.

He takes a wild-ass guess. "Do you want me to be your guardian?"

She nods at that and smiles a little.

"I'm not sure how this will work out. If I will be allowed to do that. But I will always be here for you. And I will always look out for you the best that I can."

He is unused to interacting with children, and he has not been a soft or gentle man, but his hand reaches out of its own accord and brushes back the hair from her face.

She relaxes at his touch, and leans her head on his shoulder. They sit there in silence for a while; then he hears a little snore. She is sound asleep.

So he stays there for the better part of an hour while she sleeps, thinking of her, thinking of her parents, thinking, as he often does when his mind is idle, of his failed mission with the turian Spectre, Saren.

Thinking about Saren isn't a wise thing for him to do. He mourns all of the civilians that bastard killed for exactly nothing. Ruminates on how Saren adroitly managed to blame it all on him. And every time he ends up thinking the same thing and feeling a little sorry for himself... No Spectre status for you, Anderson, he always thinks, no Spectre status for you.

This time, when he gets to that point, he feels Jane move a little, and he smiles. No, not for me. It's too late for me. But it isn't too late for her. I doubt even Saren can keep her from it, if she wants it. And she will want it. She'll be smart enough to know she needs to gather all the power, all the allies she can get if she's going to fight the batarians over slavery. He nods and smiles again. Those batarians may have made a fatal mistake, attacking Mindoir. Killing her parents. If I'm right about her, anyone who makes her their enemy is a damned fool.

There's no end to what she can be, he thinks as he begins to doze, no end to what she can do... no end.. He sits half-napping, her head on his shoulder, until his beeping omnitool startles him and makes him realize that it's time to get back to it.

"Jane," he says gently. "Wake up, child."

Her eyes open. She sits up and smiles at him.

"I have to go back to my duties."

She nods.

"We have been talking over your future. What to do next. I can't keep you with me on this ship. I was thinking you might want to join the military when you reach adulthood. Would you like that?"

She nods vigorously and smiles some more.

"Then I think the best place for you is in one of our prep schools. One possibility is the one on Earth I went to, in Virginia. In the United States. The curriculum is tough, but I think it would suit you. Is that ok with you?"

She nods again. Then she reaches over suddenly and hugs him. He hugs her back. She gets up and heads toward the door. When she reaches it, she looks back, grins, and is gone.

-:-

"She obeys every order. Her performance is faultless in almost every respect. Her kit is spotless. She is the best shot in the school with a pistol. Better than any instructor. Her grades are close to perfect. She smiles and laughs readily. But she doesn't talk. Not a word.

"We've kept our agreement with you and Hackett. We've given her time to come around. All the teachers and instructors have made allowances because of Mindoir, but they can't continue making exceptions if she is physically able to talk. Which she is."

The school counselor pushes back her hair with a harassed look. "A lot of us were skeptical when you brought her here. She's an inexperienced girl from a rural, backwater planet. She's small compared to her peers. She's missed the first two years of training here. She's been through incredible trauma. But despite all that, you were right. This is where she belongs. She's the best any of us have seen here, Anderson. Ever. Even Yunko agrees. He hasn't managed to make her break down once. After she went through the first ENZero training march and came out top of her class, all that old fossil had to say was, 'No surprise there.'."

Anderson has to smile at that. Yunko has been a legend at this school, and every cadet's worst nightmare, for close to 50 years.

"During the last leg of the march, it was her teammate Toombs' turn to carry the squad gear, and he was wilting under the extra 15 kilos. He went to everyone on his team individually and asked if they'd do him a favor and take some of the weight so he could make it to the end. Everyone but her. Guess his ego couldn't take asking someone so much smaller than him. Everyone in the squad was struggling by then, and, buddies or not, they all said no. He was facing failure, so he finally swallowed his pride and asked Jane. She was struggling, too, but she smiled at him, opened a candy bar she'd held in reserve, broke half off, and gave it to him.

"Then she took 7 of his extra kilos in her pack for the last 16 klicks. She's so small none of us have any idea how she manages to carry the regulation pack, never mind 7 more kilos. Toombs is at least a foot taller than her and all muscle, but he'd never have made it to the finish line without her help. He started out in training making fun of her because she didn't talk. Now he'd die for her, silent or not, and no one makes fun of her when he's around."

After a pause, the therapist lets out a big sigh. "Small or not, she was born for this, but if she doesn't start speaking, she will fail."

"What do you want me to do?" Anderson asks.

"I don't know."

"What do the shrinks say?"

"They don't know what to do."

"She has winter leave coming up, doesn't she?"

"Yep. Two weeks."

"Can I see her?"

"Sure. I'll have her meet you here."

"No, down in the mall."

"Maybe you're right."

-:-

Her face lights up a little when she sees him and she smiles as her pace quickens across the green grass. Anderson's heart melts. He grins his biggest grin and somehow his arms open up and she's in them and hugging him back.

They sit down and look at each other a minute.

"You look good, Jane. Only five months and you've already grown. I hear you finished the first ENZero march head of your class." He brushes her hair away from her cheek. "I'm proud of you. Your parents would be proud of you."

The look of sorrow that flashes across her face tears him up inside, but he goes on.

"You have a two-week leave coming up and I have some leave myself. I thought you might want to get away from here, and do something different. Have you ever been skiing?"

She shakes her head.

"Would you like to come to Colorado with me?"

She grins at that and nods yes with enthusiasm.

"I'll check in with the right people here before I leave. I'll be back to pick you up at 9 AM next Monday."

A bell sounds and she looks towards one of the school buildings.

"Go on to class."

She smiles at him and takes his hand a moment. Then she's up and away.

-:-

She is fearless. That's the only word to describe it, Anderson says to himself. Within two days she's on the hardest intermediate slopes. Within four she's attempting the easiest advanced ones. By day six, she is keeping up with him in speed, if not in form, and they are having a great time together.

As a lark, he introduces her to snowboarding, and she takes to that fast, too. She'll try anything and does, even bungee jumping, where she grins through the drop, and laughs uncontrollably as she hangs bouncing upside down when it's over.

When they only have three days left and she still hasn't spoken, he decides they are going to have to talk about the not talking.

"Jane, it's been fun."

She smiles wide and nods.

"Can we talk a little business?"

She looks at him a minute and her face grows still, but she nods again.

"Right now, you are a ward of the Alliance. At the end of your next school year, you'll be an independent adult. I'm wondering if you still want to join the military?"

She looks at the fire. Then she looks back at him.

He decides to be blunt. "I don't know why you aren't talking, child. Whether it's because you can't, or because you won't. But if you can, we have to figure out how to make that happen. If you want to enter the military, you will have to speak."

He's afraid she's going to close up at that, but she doesn't. Instead, she gives him a serious look and nods. She looks into the fire again for a long time.

"If I talk, they'll ask me questions." Her voice is a shock to him, but he manages to reply almost casually.

"About Mindoir?"

"Yes. Anderson, I..." she hesitates. "It's just that I can't. I'll do anything else. Talk about anything else. But I can't talk about that and I won't."

Anderson's voice takes on an edge. "I saw the aftermath, child. If anyone ever tries to make you talk about it, you let me know. I'll take care of it."

She smiles at him. "Thanks. I sort of got myself trapped around the not talking. I knew it couldn't last, but I couldn't figure out how to move forward. All I knew was I could not talk about Mindoir. Now you say I don't have to, and all the sudden, I'm free. Thanks."

And she talks for the rest of the trip. He finds out a lot about her, her eclectic tastes in music, what she likes to read, what sorts of vids she likes to watch. One night she suggests they play a few hands of gin. He finds out the hard way that she plays gin like a pro.

She talks a lot, as though she needs to, telling him all about her semester at the academy, the ENZero march, her classes, her classmates, the food, every little thing that crosses her mind.

She asks after her farm, decides to give away the livestock and sell anything worth selling that's left. Decides to give the proceeds to the relief effort. Anderson helps her draft a message about it to the attorney managing her parents' estate. After that's finished, she tells him she'll go back someday, but not until she's kept her promise.

At the end of the first day of her chatter, he finds himself liking her immensely. At the end of the second day, he finds himself hoping he has a daughter like her someday. At the end of the last day, he realizes he has come to love her like a daughter.

She hugs him tight when they say goodbye, and, for the first time, he sees a tear in her eye. No surprise, he thinks as he walks away. There's one in mine.


	4. N7

"I told you to put Shepard in charge, goddamit!" Anderson's fist hits the table and Hackett flinches.

"I thought she was too young, Anderson. She's only 23. There were... political implications to the mission. I felt it best to send in an established, mature leader."

"Instead of a capable one?" Anderson looks like he's about to spit. "They all died, Hackett. 48 brave soldiers and that mature leader died because of your bad decision. Most of those soldiers would have followed Shepard into Hell. Half of them were alive because she saved their asses in some past action. She would have saved some of them from the maws. What a waste."

"Udina requested we send Regnant. And the woman had an excellent record."

"In the First Contact War, yeah. She was a by-the-book frontline officer. She was too old to be in the field on an independent mission. Her first independent mission. Had no xenobiome experience to speak of. When those worms exploded out of the ground, she was completely unnerved. Screamed and ran, right into the heart of the monsters. Her team never had a chance. All so you could do a favor for some fucking politician."

Hackett ignores the profanity and the insult and tries to turn the conversation in a different direction. "How's Shepard?"

"She'll live. Whether she'll ever sleep again is another story. She took command when Regnant ran. Tried to save her team. A maw dragged Toombs down as she was trying to pull him to safety. When she started going under herself, she had to let go. She feels guilty as hell."

Somehow, that gets past all of Hackett's barriers, and the walls come tumbling down.

"I'm the guilty one, David. I was wrong. I admit it. I've held her age against her. I felt her progress through the ranks was too... rapid. It's true. It was her long silence after Mindoir. I thought it was an indication she might prove unstable. I was wrong. You're right."

Hackett's face is white, and he looks old. "I watched her headcam footage. I watched it to the end. The screams still haunt me. Shepard took command and got a few soldiers to maintain discipline and defend themselves. Their weapons were totally ineffective. After they realized that, they all panicked. Ran in different directions, every man for themselves. All of them except her and Toombs. She kept trying to save the others, but her efforts were futile. Most of them were dragged down within the first few minutes.

"Toombs stood by her to the bitter end. It looked like they would both escape, for a minute. Then two maws erupted out of the ground, one of them less than a meter from Toombs. He didn't have a chance. Shepard threw herself down and grabbed him underneath the arms. I watched him go under. She didn't let go of him until her headcam was buried in the sand. His expression... I still see it at night. I'm not getting much sleep."

Hackett pauses a moment to reflect and comes to a decision. "What I'm telling you is classified information. We know how to kill a solo maw with small arms now, because she figured it out, at the very end. She killed one, David. On foot. With a pistol.

"Only the one maw was left above ground, and it was between her and the landing field. She ran around it at a steady pace, just out of reach of a physical attack. It rotated in place, tracking her, spitting acid that always landed not a meter behind her. The vulnerable part of its throat stayed exposed and she went through clip after clip of ammo until the thing died. Once she figured out the timing, her aim and her pace were so steady it was like watching a machine. I've never seen anyone cooler in a combat situation. If she had done anything else, if she had tried to run for it, she would have died."

Hackett sighs and nods his head. "You're right. It was a bad call on my part, and it cost too many good lives. I can't ignore politics, you know that. But I won't let political concerns outweigh operational ones. Never again."

That mollifies Anderson a little. "What now?"

"She's a hero. Right now we need heroes. She'll be promoted, get a medal, the usual."

Hackett sees Anderson about to explode again, and he holds up his hand. "Wait. We need her to accept all of it, for political reasons. And for the families. She'll also receive her N7 designation."

"About time. She should have had it a year ago." Anderson looks at Hackett closely. "What do you have against her, really?"

"All right. There are a couple of strikes against her. The first one is highly classified. She has biotic potential, but it has never manifested. Her parents deliberately avoided registering her exposure in utero to eezo, but we found out about it when we did her N2 security investigation. And she had a secondary exposure while volunteering on a minor prothean dig on Mindoir when she was 14.

"By the time she qualified for N2, it was too late to do the implant. Without it, we have no way to predict what will happen if her biotics ever come online. If that happens in combat, it could be devastating to her and her team.

"And she's a loose cannon, Anderson. Oh, she obeys orders, follows every rule. But only because she wants to. Only because she agrees with them. If she didn't, she'd do whatever she thought necessary to accomplish whatever she thought her mission should be, orders be damned."

Hackett suddenly smiles.

For the first time, Anderson smiles back. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I am. I don't have anything against her. She is one of our very best. Her loyalty to the Alliance is without question. But her talents are wasted in normal combat situations. I agree. She's a natural for our first human Spectre. There she could operate at her full capacity."

They sit in silence for a few minutes, then Hackett speaks again. "But first, all the falderol. And her N7 designation. Some more high-profile critical missions. If she survives those, we'll see."

Hackett rises, and Anderson rises with him. "Not a word about the Spectre business to anyone, Captain."

"No, sir." Anderson pauses. "Have you ever met her in person, Admiral?"

"No. But I will. I'll be visiting her myself, when she's had a chance to recover. Tell her she's done the whole service proud."

"I'll let her know you're coming. She'll appreciate it."

"It's the least I can do. Thank you for your... ah... measured input, Captain Anderson." Hackett grins at his old friend. "Dismissed."

"She's sleeping, Captain. I think it's best if we don't wake her."

Anderson nods at the medical tech. "How is she?"

"She has some nasty acid burns. Lots of contusions, scratches, that sort of thing. Her armor protected her pretty well, but I think the vulnerability to acid is dangerous. Someone needs to look into it."

"I'll pass that on."

"Other than that and the emotional trauma, she's fine."

"Is she talking?"

"Yes, she is. It's painful, of course, but she understands it is an important part of her PTSD therapy."

The tech smiles a little. "She's a very practical woman. She understands perfectly well that there was nothing she could do. She understands that being second in command meant she couldn't take command in time to save them. That even if she had had command, it was unlikely she could have saved them all. Given the circustances, the fact she almost saved Toombs is amazing."

The tech nods to himself. "She feels a lot of guilt at the moment around Toombs. At the same time, she understands she could not save him. She did the right thing letting go. She knows that. Doesn't make it feel any better, though."

"No, it never does," Anderson says, half to himself. Then he speaks up. "Call me as soon as she wakes up. I don't care what time it is or what I am doing."

"Yes, sir."

"Anderson." Shepard smiles at him as she sits up in her bed.

"Jane, how are you?"

"Good. The doctors have been very good to me. I'm working my way through it. They say I'll be fine, and I agree."

"I'm glad to hear it." Anderson smiles at her. "I was glad to hear you've been talking."

"Yeah, yeah. You'd have given me shit if I didn't."

"Damn right." He sits down on the bed next to hers. His hand reaches out and she takes it and they stay like that for a minute in a peaceful silence.

"You did good. I know it hurts about Toombs, but there was nothing you could do."

She lets out a big breath. "No. I did what I could. I know that. Doesn't make it feel better. But it does mean I can continue to do my duty."

He squeezes her hand then, and lets it go. He stands up.

"Lieutenant Shepard, your bravery and resourcefulness are a credit to the service. Admiral Hackett will be coming to express the pride and admiration the whole Fleet feels towards your actions on Akuze. Be prepared to receive him tomorrow at 1000 hours."

She frowns a little at that and he chuckles.

"You said you could continue to do your duty."

She sighs. "Is there going to be a ceremony?"

"Yes, when you've fully recovered."

"Can I get out of going?"

"Nope."

"Well, what can't be cured must be endured." Then she salutes him. "Yes, sir."

"Jane?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Your parents would be proud of you. I am proud of you."

She smiles a little then. "You always know what to say. Thank you."

"I'll be here when Hackett arrives." She looks tired to him. "Why don't you get some rest?"

"Yeah, I think you're right. I'm still tired. And on drugs." So she slips back down and pulls the covers up.

He pulls them up a bit higher, tidies them, then kisses her on the forehead.

"I'm so glad you're alive, child. So glad."

She smiles up at him. "Me, too. It meant a lot, seeing your face when I woke up in medbay the first time. Thanks for dropping in again." She looks away a moment, then looks back at him, her cheeks a little rosy. "Always sleep better, knowing you're around."

Anderson nods. After clearing his throat, he says, "I'll be here. Sleep well." Feeling awkward, he winks at her and adds, "That's an order." Then he heads for the door. She smiles as she watches him leave. The doors close and she immediately falls asleep, still smiling.

When the medbay doors open to admit Hackett, Shepard has pulled herself to her feet. Her back is straight and she gives the admiral the best salute she is capable of.

"Lieutenant Commander Shepard, it is my understanding you are still confined to bed."

She doesn't acknowledge the change in title at all. She just says, "I am, sir."

"Then best get back in it," Hackett has to smile. "Don't do things by halves, do you, Shepard?"

"My father used to say if something is worth doing, it's worth doing right," she says as she follows orders.

"Your parents sound like they were extraordinary people." Hackett's voice is remarkably gentle, gentler than Anderson ever remembers hearing it.

"They were, sir."

"Well, they raised an extraordinary daughter." Hackett sits down on the bed next to hers. "How are you? Really?"

"As good as I can reasonably expect, Admiral. I still have nightmares about Toombs, but they are getting less frequent. I did everything I could, sir, and I'm working hard on letting it all go."

"Your resourcefulness, bravery, and selfless efforts to rescue Toombs are the only good that can be salvaged from that debacle."

Hackett looks down briefly. "Anderson ripped me a new one for not putting you in command, Shepard. He's right. I was wrong. I bear the responsibility for those deaths. I'll never forget a single one of your comrades. I want to apologize to you for putting you and them under the command of someone unfit for that duty."

She sits quietly, her gaze piercing him through.

He looks away, ashamed to meet her eyes. But he knows he has to give her more, and he looks back at her. "It was a political decision, Shepard. But looking back at it, I see it was ill-considered. I've learned from this mistake. It won't happen again."

"49 good soldiers dead from this... mistake, sir. Some of them good friends. Old friends." The corner of her upper lip twitches and her eyes narrow as she speaks. Hackett doesn't change expression as he deliberately ignores her surpressed snarl, but he surprises himself by feeling a strong impulse to retreat from the menace in it.

Shepard takes a deep breath in an effort to maintain control. Then she takes another, then a third, while she looks off into space. Finally her face clears, and she nods, almost to herself.

"We all make mistakes, sir. Our mistakes, yours and mine, too often they cost lives. But we still make them. We're only human." She sighs, and says, "When I was a kid my mom was always telling me to learn from mistakes and move on. Thank you for your apology. I can't accept it in the name of the dead, but for myself I do."

"That's more than I have a right to expect. Thank you." He smiles a little in relief, not understanding at all in the moment why it was so important to him to gain her forgiveness.

"Now for one of the most pleasant parts of this visit. You have been promoted to Lieutenant Commander, with a commesurate raise in pay. You have also been nominated for an Alliance Star for your efforts to save your teammate Toombs."

"I didn't save him," she says flatly. "I failed. I don't see why I should get a medal for that."

"I watched your headcam video. He's not the only one you tried to save. At great risk to yourself. Your headcam was buried in the sand before you let him go."

Shepard stays silent.

"I understand how you feel, more than you know. But you must accept the medal and the promotion and the honors, Lieutenant Commander. It is in the best interests of the Fleet."

He takes a deep breath. "Shepard, it means something to their families that there was someone there who cared enough to try to save their loved ones. They need a hero right now, and you are the closest thing we've got."

She goes rigid a moment, a tear slipping down her cheek. "Yes, sir. You're right. They do. Of course, I'll accept it all. Anything that can offer their families the slightest comfort, I'll do."

Her face relaxes into a small smile, and she adds, "Besides, Anderson has already impressed the importance of being gracious about it on me."

Then she says, "Admiral, what about Toombs? He was rock-steady the whole time. He followed orders without flinching. He was the real hero, not me."

"He will receive his Star during your ceremony, Shepard. I've already seen to it."

They are all silent a moment, then Shepard speaks again. "I've composed personal letters to the families of every one of them. I would like to print them out on paper and sign them, Admiral. Have them delivered by courier. Is that possible?"

Hackett starts to say something about reviewing them and stops himself. Get ahold of yourself, Steven, he thinks. That would be a serious insult to this intelligent, honorable woman. Totally unnecessary. Instead, he says, "Of course. Forward them to me and one of my aides will see to the details."

He stands up then. "One last thing. You are now N7. No one has ever deserved it more. You are a credit to your uniform, and one of the finest soldiers it has been my privilege to know. It has been a pleasure and an honor to meet you, Commander. I look forward to seeing you at the ceremony."

He returns her salute, and then he is out the door.

Later that night, Anderson receives a call.

"Have you read these letters?" Hackett asks.

"No, I haven't."

"Here's her letter to Major Regnant's wife:"

Dear Mrs. Regnant:

I write to express my sorrow and regret for the loss of your wife during our mission on Akuze. She was a kind, intelligent, engaged commanding officer who was respected by everyone under her command.

The press clearly intends to make Major Regnant a scapegoat for what happened on Akuze. I want to assure you that she in no way deserves what is being said of her. I was there. There was no warning, ma'am. No sign at all. She was in no way negligent. She deployed her team absolutely according to accepted Alliance tactics. Against any sort of conventional force, she would certainly have prevailed.

I hope you will take some comfort in knowing she died doing her duty, as she had always done. I will keep her memory alive, and endeavour to emulate her dedication to the Alliance all my days.

Sincerely,  
Jane Shepard, LCDR

"What an utterly decent thing for her to do, Anderson."

"She's an utterly decent person, Hackett."

"Clearly. I'll forward these by courier to her in the morning. The courier will wait until she signs them, then hand-deliver each of them to its designated recipient."

"She'll be glad to hear that."

"The rest are just as kind and even more personal. She obviously took the time to get to know every single person on the team. I had no idea she had this kind of leadership potential, Anderson. It isn't something that stands out in her record."

"She's not been given much chance to display it. But the people who serve with her know it."

"She'll be given the chance from now on." Hackett hesitates, then rushes on.

"Her eyes, I've never seen anything like them. I knew Regnant had been a mistake, David, before I ever saw Shepard. That's why I came with the intent to apologize. But when I offered the apology I'd practiced, I could barely bring myself to meet her eyes. Assigning Regnant wasn't the simple mistake I was trying to make it out to be. It was a willful one, made for all the wrong reasons. I could see in Shepard's eyes that she knew my apology was bullshit. I knew if I truly wanted her forgiveness, I had to tell her the whole truth. So I did.

"At that moment, facing her, full of guilt, it felt like our roles were reversed. I had a strong feeling that she was my senior officer, judging me and my performance, not the other way around. You said she had that effect on your team in your report on Mindoir years ago, and I thought it was an exaggeration. Now I know better."

After a second, Hackett adds, "I have to pay attention to politics. It's part of my job. But I'll never put politics before military necessity again. I know I said that before, but now I mean it."

Anderson says nothing.

After an awkward pause, Hackett says, "I'm waiting for it, Anderson."

"For what?"

"For the 'I told you so.'"

Anderson smiles at his old friend for the first time. "Not worth the bother, Steven."

Hackett grins. "See you at the ceremony."

"See you there."

"Hackett, out."  



	5. Shakedown

"A highly satisfactory conclusion to a well-conducted interspecies collaboration, Admiral." Ambassador Udina says smugly.

"All that's left is to finish choosing the crew." Hackett sits back and stares out over the Citadel.

Udina scowls. "Well, the pilot's been chosen. By the turians."

Hackett chuckles. "Joker? They're right. He's the best there is. Her captain has been chosen, as well."

"Who?"

"Anderson."

Udina scowls again. "Why wasn't I consulted?"

Hackett glances over at the ambassador, and sits up a little straighter. "Because military appointments don't concern you, Udina. I don't meddle in your affairs. Don't meddle in mine."

Udina starts to reply, looks at Hackett's face, and thinks better of it. All he says is, "Better get Anderson up here, then."

-:-

"Do we want someone like Shepard defending the galaxy?" Udina says.

"Someone like Shepard is the only kind of person who can defend the galaxy." Anderson says, turning to the ambassador. "Besides, she's the one Nihlus recommended to the Council."

"I still don't understand why a turian would recommend a human for the Spectres."

"Udina, Nihlus made that clear in the Council meeting. I don't think he has any hidden agendas around it."

"Why hasn't Saren objected? We all know what he thinks about humans in the Spectres or anywhere else."

Anderson shakes his head. "Saren hasn't been heard from for months. He's in deep cover. That makes this our best shot at getting a human on the Spectre team."

"All right. When will you notify her of her candidacy?"

Anderson looks at Hackett and Hackett nods.

"On the shakedown cruise. Nihlus has requested he be the one to inform her."

"Are we going to make a habit of allowing aliens on our ships, Hackett?"

"Since they helped design this one, I don't think having a turian aboard can be considered a security risk, Udina."

"I guess not." Udina glances at his terminal. "I have to meet the volus ambassador in ten minutes." He rises from his chair, and the other two men rise with him.

"Keep me informed," he says, and walks out of the room.

A minute later Anderson says, "Damn."

"He's an able politician. But there's times I'd like to punch him in the face," Hackett says.

"No joke."

"The good news is that Shepard's transfer happened days ago. She'll meet you on board." Hackett turns to his friend. "I stopped listening to Udina after Akuze. I told you I would. Nihlus is right. She is the best the Alliance has to offer. Maybe the best humanity has to offer, except for you."

Anderson shakes his head. "I had my chance. I blew it. With Saren out of the way, maybe she has a better chance. I know my match when I see it, Hackett. She's better than me. Hell, she's better than you."

"That, I wouldn't argue. If anyone can do this, she can." Hackett stands, and Anderson stands with him.

"Good luck, Captain." Hackett's expression is indefinable. "I envy you."

"I believe that."

"Keep me informed."

"Yes, sir," Anderson says as he salutes.

Hackett returns the salute and is gone.

-:-

"Thank you for requesting me as part of your team, sir."

"Thank you for accepting the appointment, Commander Shepard." Anderson places a bit of emphasis on her fresh shiny title.

"Wild horses couldn't have kept me away, Anderson." They smile at each other.

She looks through the roster. "I saw a lot of familiar faces on my tour of the ship. I don't remember Pressly, though."

"He's one of the best navigators in the fleet. Intelligent, thorough, and absorbed by the problems of his craft. He has experience as a first officer, as well, and has given an equally impressive performance in that role. I guess you might say Pressly's made a career out of being indispensable."

"Excellent. I see Chakwas has taken over medbay, which is a great thing for all of us, especially the ground team. This pilot, Joker," She grins. "Hijacking an Alliance frigate worked out pretty well for him, didn't it?"

"Hackett wanted to strangle him. But he is the best, and we all admired his audacity. When the turians stepped in, High Command welcomed the excuse to let him take the helm."

"Kaiden Alenko's biotics are an asset to any team," Shepard goes on, "I've always enjoyed working with him. But Jenkins is very inexperienced. Why him?"

"Eden Prime. He's a native. A natural liaison. And we're not expecting trouble."

She nods. "Speak for yourself. I always expect trouble. But I can see why you chose him. And Adams. I knew he'd find his way to the Normandy's engine room as soon as I heard about this ship."

"Yep, I wouldn't trust anyone else with that drive. Don't want us all blown to hell."

"And Nihlus. Why him?"

"The turians wanted a liaison aboard during the shakedown cruise. They've been damned generous about everything. Seemed a reasonable request."

"He's Spectre."

"All the better for building bridges."

She grins at him again. "True, true. Well, if you'll excuse me, sir, I'll make my rounds."

"Certainly." Anderson nods and turns back to his terminal. "Dismissed."

-:-

"Wassup, Alenko?"

"Hey, Shepard. Good to see you. Just going through my gear. This may be a shakedown cruise, but you never know."

"That's what I said to Anderson. You want to meet me and Jenkins in the cargo bay for some quick handsign review?"

"I'll be there in five."

"See you then."

He watches her rush off towards the medbay, and remembers their last assignment together. All business. All business every assignment. Friendly, engaged, and personal. But all business.

Alenko sighs. She is beautiful, although she doesn't seem to know it. If she does, she doesn't care. Gossip followed her around the fleet. And it said she didn't own a single set of civilian clothes. He'd never seen her in anything other than a uniform or her armor.

Gossip also said she hadn't had a lover in years. Maybe not since Akuze. I wouldn't mind being the one to change that, he says to himself. Not at all. Not that she'd responded to a single one of his advances.

Wait... Alenko, get your mind out of the gutter, he says. Be a professional here. She is your commanding officer. She's about as likely to fraternize with you as Anderson is. That thought definitely turns his mind to business.

A great field commander, for sure. Always treated his biotics as an asset, a weapon, and never once treated him differently from anyone else because of them.

Time to get down to the cargo bay. After that, up to the bridge, where he'll act as Joker's backup while learning a bit more about the systems.

Some day, Kaiden thinks, some day I'll be the captain. Some day I'll have one of these babies for my own.

-:-

"Commander."

"Doctor, just wanted to poke my head in the door and say hello."

"Glad to have you on board. Try to stay in one piece this trip, will you?"

"Anderson says we're not expecting any action on the ground."

"Good. Keep it that way."

"See ya, doc."

"See you later, Commander."

-:-

Shepard rushes out of the elevator and into Engineering.

"Wow!" She stops short when she sees the drive. "Adams, that thing is a monster!"

"Yeah," he looks over at the drive fondly. "She's big, but she's sweet."

"I'll be back after we relay to find out more about her. Just wanted to say hi." She smiles as she turns towards the door. "See ya."

"See you later, Commander," he says to her back as it goes out the door.

-:-

Shepard stands by the ground team lockers, wrapping things up with Alenko and Jenkins.

"Good job, both of you. You remembered everything, Alenko. I'm impressed." She looks over at Jenkins. "You did well, Jenkins. Spend some time reviewing it all and we'll practice again tomorrow."

"You bet, Commander."

"The two of you should probably get to your stations. I'll be up shortly."

"Aye, Commander," Alenko says, and the men take the elevator up to the crew deck.

Shepard looks around at the empty cargo bay, and goes over to the Mako. She loves driving the ATV, even though it's cursed by half the ground teams in the Alliance. No middle ground at all around Makos. She pats the vehicle like it's a horse.

"Soon, baby," she croons to it. "Soon it'll be you, me, and some crazy terrain."

"You enjoy driving the Mako, I take it, Commander?"

Shepard jumps at the turian voice, but recovers instantly. "Yep, Nihlus, I do. A little bouncy, maybe, but they can go pretty much anywhere."

"Perhaps you'll be willing to take me with your team sometime, so I can experience it."

"Certainly, if Anderson approves."

"I'm sure he won't mind." Nihlus nods at her. "I was watching you with your team on the monitor in the bridge. You brought the young man, Jenkins, along quickly."

"He's a good soldier. Inexperienced, but he has good focus. And a willing attitude. That goes a long way with me."

"Me, too, Commander."

Just then the relay alarm sounds.

"Have to get to my post, Nihlus. I look forward to working with you."

"And I with you."

Nihlus watches her walk to the elevator. When the door closes, he nods his head, his subvocals quietly humming.

-:-

As they approach Eden Prime, Anderson calls Nihlus and Shepard to the conference room.

When Shepard walks back out, she goes to Jenkins.

"There's a situation on Eden Prime, Jenkins." She puts her hand up. "There'll be time for questions after you suit up. Head down now and start getting ready. Alenko and I will be there shortly."

She goes forward. "Alenko, we're suiting up."

As they hurry to the elevator, side by side, Shepard says, "Jenkins isn't ready for this. I'm concerned."

"All hell is breaking loose down there, Shepard. And the three of us are it. He'll have to be ready."

"Let's do our best to keep an eye on him, anyway."

"We will."

-:-

"Almost there." Shepard turns to Jenkins. "You did a great job in training, but don't expect to remember it all in the heat of battle. I don't expect you to. The most important thing to remember is when I send you somewhere, get into cover. Immediately. Don't hesitate, don't look around, don't engage the enemy. Move as fast and safely as you can, and get into cover. Cover first, fighting second. Got that?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Jenkins looks nervous. His face is haggard. Alenko can tell the man has been crying.

"You ok?" Alenko asks.

"Yeah... no... this is my home, fuck it! My people are getting killed down there. Oh, god, my family. No, I'm not all right. I want to kill every geth fucker on the planet!" Jenkins is trembling by the time he's done talking. Most of that's from anger, but Shepard can see the fear hiding in the depths of his eyes.

The fear is what will kill him, she thinks. Or he'll fight it, and his bravado might kill us all. I can't allow that. We cannot fail this mission.

Shepard takes a breath and puts a hand on his arm. "Jenkins, it's a terrible feeling, seeing your home under attack. I know. But you can't help your people if you let your emotions get out of control." She pats his arm and he nods. "The children down there need us to be calm, controlled, and effective. We are useless to them if we don't stay alive."

Mindoir. That's the first word that comes to Jenkins' mind. Mindoir. Everyone knows Shepard never talks about Mindoir. But this has happened to her, too, on Mindoir. That's what she's saying. I don't have to be ashamed. She understands. She was only a kid back then, though. I'm a man. A trained soldier. She's right. The kids need me to stay alive. I need to keep it together.

"I understand, ma'am," he says after a moment. "Cover first, fighting second. We can't help anyone if we're dead."

"Good." Shepard smiles at him with approval. And he's regained enough control to smile back.

-:-

When Shepard jumps out of the Normandy, the scent and sight of so much green overwhelms her senses, carrying her back, for a moment, to Mindoir. But Jenkins jumps down beside her and breaks the spell.

As angry and nervous as he is, Jenkins is home. Shepard can see him begin to relax as soon as he looks around. This is his turf; he is intimately familiar with it. He's the team expert when it comes to Eden Prime, and he shows increasing self-confidence as he tells them about the flora and fauna.

Three minutes later, he's dead.

Shepard had taken point, as usual. Everything looked clear, so she motioned Alenko into standing cover. No reaction, no sign of the enemy, so she sent Jenkins to a spot near her with short cover. As he crossed open space to get there, some drones appeared out of nowhere.

Instead of diving for cover, Jenkins froze. Maybe from surprise, maybe from fear... whatever the reason, he froze in mid-step, the drones attacked, and he died.

Shepard and Alenko took down the drones. Now, Alenko kneels beside Jenkins' body.

"Ripped right through his shields," Alenko says. "Never had a chance." He closes Jenkins' eyes, looking up in time to see a flash of grief pass over Shepard's face.

She looks at Jenkins, looks at their path ahead, and looks over at the devastation still going on in the distance. Then she sighs and says, "We'll see that he receives a proper service once the mission is complete."

As Alenko stands up, she glances at his face, and says in a firm, sympathetic tone of voice, "I need you to stay focused."

"Aye, aye, ma'am," he answers. A sourceless, high-pitched whine has kept Kaiden on edge since they landed, and Jenkins' sudden death has unnerved him. Light-headed, on the edge of a migraine, he interprets Shepard's sympathy in a way he might not have, otherwise. The warmth in her voice seems personal to him.

Does it mean she cares for me? he thinks. Maybe. Maybe it does. I hope... yeah, I really hope it does.

But now, he says to himself, as Shepard heads up the path in front of them, now is not the time.

-:-

"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212. You the one in charge here, ma'am?" Outside, Ashley is all regs and formality. Inside, she's thinking, "She's so fucking small. But man can she shoot."

"Are you wounded, Williams?" is Shepard's only reply as she looks the Gunnery Chief over.

"A few scrapes and burns. Nothing serious. The others weren't so lucky." Ashley looks down. But she's nervous and stressed and relieved and feels the need to talk. So she looks up a second, then turns away to point at a small hill, saying, "Oh, man. We were patrolling the perimeter when the attack hit. We tried to get off a distress call, but they cut off our communications. I've been fighting for my life since."

"Any idea what kind of enemy we're fighting?" Shepard asks.

Williams takes a deep breath, because she knows what's she's about to say will sound crazy. "I think they're geth."

Shepard nods.

Kaiden looks at Williams in surprise. "The geth haven't been seen outside the Veil in nearly 200 years. Why are they here now?"

Duh, Ashley thinks. But aloud all she says is, "They must have come here for the beacon." She points at the hill again. "The dig site is close. Just over that rise. It might still be there."

"We could use your help," Shepard says. Something in the Commander's voice grabs Ashley's attention. The way Shepard says "your" makes it clear the woman thinks it's Ashley's help they need, in particular. Alone and adrift, that's how Ashley interprets it, anyway, and she can't resist it.

And she can't resist the chance for revenge. Her whole team, dead. Gone. And her left behind. Why? No, I can't think of that, Ashley tells herself, and shoves it aside. Instead, she focuses on the here-and-now, answering, "Aye, aye, ma'am. It's time for payback."

The Commander points towards the dig site and says, "Move out!"

-:-

A few geth later, they get to the dig site. The beacon is gone. Shepard expected as much. After consulting with Ashley, Shepard decides to continue on to the research camp, maybe get some answers if they find any surviving scientists.

As she gets ready to move the team out, she hears Nihlus' voice in her helmet. Her team can see her face relax a bit. There's a warmth to Nihlus, and a sort of decency, that Shepard couldn't help but like, even before she found out that he had recommended her as a candidate for Spectre status. And, to be honest, being reminded that there is some backup out there, super-effective backup, didn't hurt her mood, either.

"Change of plans, Shepard. There's a small spaceport up ahead. I want to check it out. I'll wait for you there."

Shepard has a bad feeling about the turian going on alone, but she's not in a position to say a thing to him about it. He's a Spectre, the freest of free agents. If she did say anything, he might take it as an insult.

As she gathers her team with a nod of her head, she notices an odd look on Kaiden's face. She doesn't know what it's about and she doesn't have time right now to find out. Kaiden has always been excellent on the ground. If whatever it is was about the mission, he'd speak up.

She takes the point and heads up the ramps to the research camp, staying low, moving carefully. Her teammates stay close behind her.

A few hours ago, Ashley thinks, sneaking around like this would have annoyed me. I've always been so impatient. Charge in and get it done. Now, I'm just glad she's cautious.

-:-

When they reach the camp, they stop cold, paralyzed by what they see. Once-human bodies, suspended high in the air, pierced through like fish on a spear, covered with a scattering of blue lights. As the three soldiers watch, some of the bodies move slightly.

"Oh, god, they're still alive!" Kaiden starts to retch, and forces his stomach back under control.

"What did the geth do to them?" Ashley cries.

"I don't know," Shepard says. "Whatever they did, they're just husks of whoever they used to be. Those needle things are coming down. Get ready."

Fueled by disgust and loathing, Kaiden lets loose the most powerful biotic attack Shepard has ever seen him make. He throws all three husks high into the air. Shepard and Williams bring their guns to bear, and when the husks hit the ground, they are well and truly dead.

Shepard prods one of them with the toe of her left boot. It doesn't move. Then she leans over and scans each one, letting her helmet capture visual details while she scans.

She looks up and surveys the camp. Some of it is a burning wreck, but there are a couple of shelters still intact.

She gestures that way with her pistol. "Let's go check those out."

The first one, the closest one, has some supplies, but there's no one hiding in it. So they take what might be useful, go back outside, and look over the second one.

"The door," Ashley says. "It's closed. Security lock's engaged."

"No problem," says Shepard. She runs her omnitool over the lock, and, in a few moments, it disengages. The three of them hear some rustling inside, and enter the shelter on high alert.

-:-

"Humans, thank the Maker!" one of the scientists says.

The other one rasps, "Hurry! Close the door. Before they come back!"

Shepard tries to reassure them. "Don't worry. We'll protect you."

Ashley looks more closely at the first scientist, and says, "You're Doctor Warren, the one in charge of the excavation. Do you know what happened to the beacon?"

Dr. Warren answers, "It was moved to the spaceport this morning. Manuel and I stayed behind to help pack up the camp."

Warren looks at Ashley, her eyes full of tears. "When the attack came, the marines held them off long enough for us to hide. They gave their lives to save us."

Then her companion, Dr. Manuel, breaks in. "No one is saved. The age of humanity is ended. Soon, only ruin and corpses will remain."

Ashley takes a step back. Shepard pins Manuel with her gaze and says, "What's wrong with your assistant?"

"Manuel has a brilliant mind," says Warren, "but he's always been a bit... unstable. Genius and madness are two sides of the same coin."

Dr. Manuel breaks in again. "Is it madness to see the future? To see the destruction rushing towards us? To understand there is no escape? No hope? No, I am not mad. I'm the only sane one left!"

Manuel's outburst puts everyone on edge. The team leaves the scientists behind, and Williams guides them to the spaceport.

-:-

Manuel's desperate words ringing in their heads, they turn a corner to see a sight that could have come from a painting of the Apocalypse. Rising high above the space port, black against a dark rose sky, is... something. Something huge. Something ominous. A sort of red lightning crackles over its surface. Grasping fingers, or maybe tentacles, reach towards the ground.

"What is that? Off in the distance." Kaiden points above the spaceport.

"It's a ship!" Ashley says. "Look at the size of it!"

As they watch, it rises, and takes off into space. Kaiden suddenly feels a deep sense of relief. The whine that's been driving him nuts the whole time is gone.

Then all hell breaks loose... geth, husks. When it's over they're standing by another shelter, looking down at the spaceport. Then they hear something in the shelter. Shepard unlocks the door. Three farmers step out.

The farmers tell the team about the attack. One of them confirms the noise Kaiden was hearing was from the ship. The farmer said it felt like it was coming from inside his own skull. That it made it hard to think. Shepard seems to think it might have been some kind of jamming signal. Kaiden doesn't think so. It's clear the farmer doesn't, either.

One of the farmers lets something slip that makes Shepard suspicious. With a bit of pressure and a bit of cajoling, the farmers admit they've been helping a smuggling ring at the spaceport. Shepard gets the name of their contact, a guy named Powell. She confiscates the illegal goods, then she and her team head out.

-:-

They catch up with Nihlus at the airport, as planned. But he doesn't catch up with them, because he's dead. Shot in the back of the head at close range. No doubt, Shepard thinks, by someone he knew. Someone he trusted, or at least was unafraid of.

As Shepard stands up from checking to see if Nihlus was still alive, Ashley hears something. It's the smuggler, Powell, hiding behind some shipping crates. He's a bit of a slime, but he saw everything go down, including what happened to Nihlus.

It was some turian named Saren, Powell says. He and Nihlus knew each other, called each other by name. During their conversation, Nihlus turned his back on Saren, and Saren shot him in the back of the head at point-blank range. That's all Powell knows.

Well, and he happens to have this loose piece of tech. High quality tech. He was thinking about selling it, but here, they can have it. Put it to good use.

Shepard turns her back on the man, and kneels down beside Nihlus one last time. Jenkins dead and now this, she thinks. The whole operation has been shit since the beginning. Saving Williams has been the only bright spot, the only one.

Poor Nihlus. A good man. Shot in the back of the head from close range. Saren. The bastard backstabbed his own. Fuck him, she thinks. That traitor is going down. She takes Nihlus's omnitool and his tags, and stands up.

"All right. We're going after that bastard Saren, and we are going to recover that beacon. Now."

They fight their way through more geth and more husks, disarming some bombs along the way. Finally they are on the shipping platform, standing in front of the beacon, which seems intact. Saren is long gone, probably on that strange ship they saw take off, and Shepard dismisses him from her mind. For now.

Shepard reports in to the Normandy, talking directly with Anderson for a few minutes. She explains the situation and asks for a pickup. Report over, she starts talking to her newest recruit. Alenko looks over at the beacon. Curious, he wanders closer.

Suddenly, he's shaking, fighting some force that seems to be drawing him towards the beacon. Williams' back is to him, so she doesn't see his peril. But Shepard does. She shoves the woman in front of her out of the way, grabs Alenko, and tosses him aside. Then the beacon takes her, and carries her away to a universe of horror and pain.

-:-

Shepard is still alive, but completely unresponsive, when the Normandy arrives. Kaiden, despite being distracted by a heavy sense of guilt and his impending migraine, picks her up and carries her to medbay, refusing all offers of help.

Ashley, adrift once more, clings to the only connection she has, and follows Kaiden up the ramp, up an elevator, and into Chakwas' domain.

"Put her on that bed," Chakwas says, nodding towards one of the patient beds. Then she goes to her dispensary and comes back with a couple of pills.

"Take these, Kaiden, and lie down. I can tell from your eye movement you are close to having a migraine."

"I can't leave her, doctor," Kaiden says, taking the pills. "It should be me on that bed, not her. It's all my fault. I was careless."

"Take the pills and go lie down over there," she answers, pointing. "I'll wake you up if her condition changes."

Then Chakwas turns her full attention to Shepard.

As Kaiden lies down, Anderson walks in and looks around. He wants to go to Shepard, but he sees Ashley standing off on her own, and he goes over to her, instead.

"Are you Williams?" he asks.

"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212, sir," she replies, coming to attention and saluting, grateful inside for the recognition.

Anderson returns her salute.

"Shepard had a lot of good things to say about you when she called the Normandy down," he says, his face relaxing. "Sounds like she was damned lucky to run into you."

"I don't know, sir," Ashley says, relaxing a bit, too. "We met right after she saved my life. I was feeling pretty lucky to have met her and Alenko, right about then."

"Worked out all around, seems to me," he says, then turns his attention to Chakwas.

"How's Alenko?"

Chakwas glances over at the sleeping man. "He'll be fine. He went under sedation before the migraine had a chance to hit. It's hell being an L2, but he handles it better than anyone I know."

"How's she?"

"Her condition is stable. But her brain activity is highly abnormal. She seems asleep, doesn't she? The scanner indicates she's producing low amplitude beta waves, which are normally associated with conscious, active thinking. But she's clearly not conscious.

"On the other hand, her eye movements and general rigidity indicate she's in an REM phase, the sleep stage where we actively dream, and she is, in fact, producing the PGO waves I would expect to see associated with that state. At the same time, she is also producing delta waves in slow, regular bursts. Delta waves are normally produced in adults during our deepest sleep, not REM sleep. I've never seen or heard of this combination of brain states before."

Literally scratching her head, Chakwas turns back to her monitors. Anderson walks over beside her, Ashley not far behind.

"Here," Chakwas points to the image of Shepard's brain on the monitor. "See these areas flashing over and over again?"

"Yeah?" Anderson says. Ashley can't help but nod yes, barely managing not to say it.

"These," and her finger touches the screen, "are located deep within parts of the brain associated with long-term memory. Their position indicates they are associated with old memories," Chakwas looks at Anderson speculatively, and says slowly, "Maybe even her earliest memories. Wasn't there a prothean site on Mindoir?"

Anderson looks down, then over to Shepard, then back into Chakwas' no-nonsense gaze.

After a moment of silence, her look softens and she says, "David, she may be in grave danger. Is there anything I should know that isn't part of her official record?"

They have both entirely forgotten Ashley is there.

"Hackett will have my hide for this, Karen..."

Chakwas interrupts him. "You leave Steven to me."

"If I have to choose between him and her, it's no choice at all. You know that. Hell, he knows that. A shuttle full of eezo crashed close to her mother when she was three months' pregnant. It hit so hard it dug itself 30 meters into the ground." He pauses and takes a breath. "It crashed into a prothean ruin no one knew existed. It broke some kind of device. Something similar to this beacon, but much smaller."

"And her parents didn't report the exposure?" Chakwas stops, then adds, "No, they wouldn't. Does she know?"

"She found out during her N2 interrogations."

They both stand silent, then Ashley absentmindedly shifts her weight, making just enough noise to remind them she's there.

Chakwas looks at her. "Williams, is it? Ashley Williams?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Your injuries may seem minor right now, Ashley, but they still need attention. Get your armor off and get on that bed."

Ashley does as she's told, watching Anderson as he goes over to Shepard. She sees him lightly caress the woman's hair. Then he turns back to her. She expects him to command her to forget what's she's heard. And she's prepared to do so.

Instead, he says, "It was hell down there, Williams. Losing your whole team was a terrible thing. I'm going to leave you in Chakwas' capable hands. We can discuss your future later." He half-smiles and adds, "Don't worry, you've earned the right to decide for yourself what happens next. We'll get it sorted out before we dock at the Citadel."

Ashley's pretty quiet while Chakwas examines and treats her. Finally she says, "Doc, why hasn't anyone sworn me to silence?"

"Because the Commander spoke highly of you. Trusted you. Told Anderson she hoped you'd be willing to become a permanent part of her team."

Caught by surprise, Ashley feels sudden tears in her eyes.

Chakwas gives the young woman a warm smile. "Around here, Commander Shepard's opinions carry a lot of weight.

"I'm going to give you a light sedative, Ashley. Not enough to knock you out hard, but enough to help you sleep deeply despite your aches and pains. Your body needs time to recover."

Suddenly, all Ashley wants to do is sleep. Sleep and forget it all for a while. "Sounds great to me, ma'am. I'd say that's just what I need."

-:-

Kaiden wakes up expecting to be in agony, but he's not, and he smiles in relief. Then he sits up, swings his legs over the edge of his medbay bed, and looks over at Shepard, who is still unconscious.

He sees Ashley asleep on the bed beside him. "How's Williams, Doctor? She was a godsend down there on Eden Prime. Great fighter."

"She's fine, Kaiden. Lots of minor wounds, and some nasty burns, but nothing time and medigel won't heal."

"I think she was hit pretty hard by the loss of her squad. That may take a lot of time to work through."

"I think you're right. How are you feeling?"

"A lot better than I did when you put me out. But I still feel guilty as hell. It was an amateur thing to do. I'm really worried about Shepard. She's been out a long time."

"She has. But her mind has been very busy." Chakwas purses her lips. "I'm hoping that's a good sign. That it means the beacon didn't burn out her brain. It's nerve-wracking waiting it out."

"Why don't you just wake her up?" Kaiden gets up and moves over to Shepard's bed.

"I don't dare. There's nothing like this in the literature. I've seen nothing like it in my entire career. Her vital signs are stable. I don't understand the process happening inside her brain, but none of the individual activities are abnormal. No, I think we had best wait it out."

Chakwas looks him over. "You need to clean up, Kaiden. And you definitely need to eat. Lots of protein, lots of complex carbs. From what Shepard said when she reported in, you put on an impressive fireworks display down there."

"Heh. It was pretty tough down there at times. But the geth are subject to the laws of physics, like the rest of us." He knows Chakwas is right about the food, but he continues to stand there and stare down at Shepard.

Chakwas finally comes over and gives him a little push. "Out, Kaiden. I'll have plenty of warning when she begins to wake up. I'll let you know."

"Ok," he says, reluctantly. "Thanks, doc."

"You're welcome."

-:-

Shepard wakes up with a splitting headache. Sitting up makes it worse.

"You had us worried there, Shepard. How are you feeling?" Chakwas says.

"I'm ok. How long was I out?"

"About fifteen hours. Something happened down there with the beacon."

Kaiden can't deal with his guilt any longer. He says, "It's my fault. I must have triggered some kind of security field when I approached it. You had to push me out of the way."

Shepard looks at him and says, kindly, "Don't blame yourself. You had no way to know what would happen."

There's that strange look again, she thinks to herself, watching his face. Then she sees the light. Damn, he's got a thing for me. How am I going to deal with this? He's great on the field, and a nice guy, but I wasn't exactly in the market before, and with what just happened, I'm not interested, at all. Then Chakwas gets her attention.

"Actually, we don't even know if that's what set it off. Unfortunately, we'll never get the chance to find out."

Kaiden looks down, and says, "The beacon exploded. A system overload, maybe. The blast knocked you cold. Williams and I had to carry you back here to the ship."

Crap! she says to herself deep inside. There goes my chance to be a Spectre. Nothing I could do about it, but I've let Anderson down. I thought I had finally found the path to keeping my promise. Maybe the only path I'd ever find. No. I won't let this opportunity slip out of my grasp. I won't. I will be a Spectre. Fuck Saren.

Get a grip, she says to herself, don't leave Alenko hanging, so she does her best to smile and says, "Thanks. I appreciate it."

At that, he gives her that look again. It was just a common courtesy, she thinks. Something I'd have said to anyone. I have to nip this in the bud, but how?

Dr. Chakwas is talking to her, saying, "Physically, you're fine. But I decided some unusual brain activity, abnormal beta waves. I also noticed an increase in your rapid eye movement, signs typically associated with intense dreaming."

Shepard overcomes her reluctance to discuss her... what? dream? vision? She sighs and says, "I saw – I'm not sure what I saw. Death. Destruction. Nothing's really clear."

Dr. Chakwas looks at her dubiously, obviously aware the Commander's not being terribly forthcoming. "Hmmm. I better add this to my report. It may... Oh, Captain Anderson."

"How's our XO holding up, Doctor?"

"All the readings look normal. I'd say the Commander's going to be fine."

"Glad to hear it. Shepard, I need to speak with you," Anderson glances over at Kaiden, "...in private."

Kaidan, who's been lost in space, comes to earth all of the sudden. "Aye, aye, Captain. I'll be in the mess if you need me."

-:-

"I'll stand behind you and your report. You're a damned hero in my book," Anderson says. "That's not why I'm here. It's Saren, that other turian. Saren's a Spectre. One of the best. A living legend. But if he's working with the geth, that means he's gone rogue."

Anderson turns back to Shepard. "A rogue Spectre's trouble. Saren's dangerous. And he hates humans... Saren's allied himself with the geth. It must have to do with the beacon. Did you see anything that might give us a clue to what he's after?"

Anderson watches as her face changes. He knows the look. It was on her face when he found her on Mindoir. Whatever she's feeling, she overcomes it.

"Just before I lost consciousness, I had some kind of vision."

Despite all he knows about her, he can't help but feel skeptical. "A vision? A vision of what?"

"I saw synthetics, geth, maybe. Slaughtering people. Butchering them."

Everything about her: the look on her face, the tone in her voice, the way she moves her head, everything encourages him to believe her.

"We have to report this to the Council, Shepard."

It's her turn to look skeptical. "What are we going to tell them? I had a bad dream?"

After a bit more back and forth, Anderson orders her to tell Joker to take them into the Citadel, and leaves. Her headache down to a dull roar, Shepard walks through the mess with a word for Ashley and a nod for Kaiden, then she heads up to the bridge as ordered and tells the pilot, Joker, to take them in.


End file.
